Seed of Life [SoL] – Double Review

by Ben_P on September 6, 2015

Jen and I had another opportunity to do a double review of Seed of Life – or SoL for ease – they’re an Israeli brand that appear to have been going strong for 5 years now, specialising in screen printed psychedelic clothing and accessories, for both men and women.

‘The art of S.O.L is influenced by mystical and spiritual experiences that have nurtured awareness and consciousness. These images evoke a message of a peaceful mind and a creative spirit, a message that unites us regardless of religion or culture.’

Off the bat I definitely like what they’re trying to convey, while I don’t think I personally am their target audience I can definitely appreciate the tranquility and spirituality behind it.

We were pleased to receive a men’s t-shirt and a women’s vest and they came together nicely packaged with a free screen printed tote bag which was a pretty nice addition. I liked the tote bag so much and it perfectly fit my laptop in it so unfortunately it’s had a bit of wear and tear from being in my rucksack a large portion of the time.

Jen will obviously be reviewing the female side of things – as I’m sure it comes as no shock to any of you that I don’t have the slightest clue about women’s fashion or clothes.

I received the Peyote T-Shirt which you can purchase in 4 different colours – the amount of choice surprised me if I’m honest! Peyote for those that do not know is a psychoactive cactus so it’s quite cool for their shirts to have fitting names for the designs.

The feel of the shirt is fantastic – it’s 100% cotton, is soft and smooth on the skin and is lightweight but equally feels very durable and it’s all locally sourced and produced which I think is awesome; it’s safe to say that this is a good quality shirt. A low quality, uncomfortable feeling shirt is easy to identify but not having any irritation or even really knowing that the shirt is on you is a true testament to it’s quality – they’ve definitely nailed this down well.

I will admit that this design isn’t something that I would really go for, however I have received compliments on this design when wearing it and I can really appreciate the effort that goes into creating something so intricate – let alone screen printing it! I don’t even really know where to begin with trying to describe what I feel from the design. I do really like it but it’s just not something I would commonly wear – it makes me think of a dream catcher, or a mind map/thought processes and all sorts of imaginative things. That’s the real beauty of this in that it’s so open to interpretation and I can see how this definitely fits in with their ideologies.

The design is screen printed both front and back, and has a slightly odd feel on the t-shirt because of the intricacy of the design. Running your hands over the design you can feel the individual screen printed dots. It also touts that it has UV Reactive Colours however I haven’t been in an area where I can actually see this – so I would definitely be quite interested to see how it looks. Perhaps having an example (if possible?) on the website would entice customers a little bit more. It’s definitely made me more curious and I’ll have to make sure I wear it the next time I go out anywhere that may have UV light!

We’ll move onto the female portion of the review now conducted by Jen.

The fabric was really soft and had a lovely handfeel but this is due to the amount of elastane that is clearly in the composition of the jersey, as you can unfortunately see via the shine on the tops. Nevertheless, this shouldn’t put people off as I feel the softness outweighs this aspect.

I like the rawness of the edges that have been tightly overlocked, but the brand should be aware that this may cause stretching. This is what happened on the hem of my top and therefore it started to curl up slightly. Some may say this is adds to the uniqueness but I feel differently. Perhaps a normal hem would be better – but I understand this may cause a cost implication if using different stitch techniques.

The print quality is good and almost mimics the technique used by American pop artist Lichtenstein, with dots creating the image – although a much simpler version, which I feel is quite fresh and interesting to see.

The print image I was sent was the owl, personally I do not like it as it is not to my taste unfortunately and feel it is somewhat lost on the purple ground, however love the fact that most tops have a print on the front as well as the back much the same as Ben’s top.

The brand offer lots of other top designs that are simpler such as (coincidentally) the Peyote Topand perhaps more the sort of item that I would go for, but definitely there is enough choice for everyone.

Overall a good product and I would definitely like to see more from them in the future.